Estimation of Acceleration Amplitude of Vehicle by Back Propagation Neural Networks

This paper investigates the variation of vertical vibrations of vehicles using a neural network (NN). The NN is a back propagation NN, which is employed to predict the amplitude of acceleration for different road conditions such as concrete, waved stone block paved, and country roads. In this paper, four supervised functions, namely, newff, newcf, newelm, and newfftd, have been used for modeling the vehicle vibrations. The networks have four inputs of velocity (), damping ratio (), natural frequency of vehicle shock absorber (), and road condition (R.C) as the independent variables and one output of acceleration amplitude (AA). Numerical data, employed for training the networks and capabilities of the models in predicting the vehicle vibrations, have been verified. Some training algorithms are used for creating the network. The results show that the Levenberg-Marquardt training algorithm and newelm function are better than other training algorithms and functions. This method is conceptually straightforward, and it is also applicable to other type vehicles for practical purposes.